The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of learning and rehearsal on verbal and visual memory in 15 Native American students ranging in age from 9 to 16 years. Subjects were administered the Verbal Learning (VL) and Visual Learning (VIL) subtests of the WRAML. These subtests assess the ability to retain verbal (list of words) and visual (location of designs) information presented over 4 trials. A 5th trial assesses retention after a short delay. The study additionally aimed to relate scores on these tasks with overall scores on the WRAML, the WISC-III and the DAS. A description of mean standard/scaled scores for each of these measures is provided. Concurrent with previous research, mean Verbal IQ on the WISC-III was significantly below the normative mean while the Performance IQ was in the average range. Mean Verbal and Visual Memory Indexes on the WRAML reflected this pattern. Performance on all three subtests of the DAS (Arithmetic, Spelling, Word Reading) were significantly below average. Results of one-way repeated measures ANOVAs based on z scores indicate no significant difference from the norm in overall performance on both learning subtests. However, z scores on the VL subtest showed a significant difference across trials. While performance on the VL subtest was slightly below the normative average on trial 1, this difference appears to have been erased by trial 2. Performance on delayed recall trials for both subtests were comparable to the norm group. Correlation coefficients show a significant relation between the learning subtests and the Visual, Learning and General-Memory Index scores on the WRAML. They also show a significant relation between the VL subtest and the Verbal and Full Scale IQs on the WISC-III. Neither of the learning subtests shows a significant correlation with subtests on the DAS. Results argue against a verbal learning "weakness" in Native American children. Findings also suggest that instead of focusing on teaching to the Native Americans' "visual strength," the use of a multi-trial approach when presenting Native American children with verbal material in English would enhance learning and retention.

Research in the area of bilingual education language policy has focused generally on: (1) its relation to curriculum development and instructional design, (2) its relation to the legislative process, and (3) its relation to issues of power. Past research, however, failed to concentrate on the meanings of policy assigned by students and the relationship between the letter of policy and the spirit of its enactment at school. The purpose of this humanistic, cultural study was to examine school language policy from both historical and student-centered points of view. By addressing what they have to say in a historical context, I gleaned new insights into the possibilities for future design and evaluation of language policy. I focused on the historical relationship between the lived experiences of students regarding language choice and use at one elementary school and the central language policy statements initiated by the respective state's legislature, issued by the school district's administration and governing body, and interpreted by classroom teachers. The various policy statements and oral histories--by three generations of students--in addition to U.S. census data for the respective historical period were analyzed to understand the relationship among history, social context, policy, and language experience at school in new ways. The findings were interpreted and presented in terms of continuities and discontinuities in the relationship between students' lived experiences and policy over time. In terms of the continuous aspects of this relationship, I found the following: teachers persist in standardizing children's oral and written language expressions; children are indoctrinated by the culture of the school to abide by "American" values; and English is regarded as the language of privilege and accomplishment. In terms of discontinuities, I found the following: indigenous languages and Spanish spoken by children were no longer prohibited but sanctioned in the classroom; teachers began speaking languages other than English for instructional purposes; and faculty demographics changed from predominantly monolingual, white women to largely bilingual Hispanic women. In sum, my study is important because I offered a critical interpretation of the prevailing historical realities that have governed language policies and their ensuing practices in a South Tucson neighborhood school for the past sixty-one years. Also, in this study, I revealed the importance of opening a forum for students to voice an evaluation of language policies that regulate the course or methods of action in bilingual elementary education programs.

This project is based on six months of ethnolinguistic fieldwork in rural Texas Czech communities, mainly in Granger (Williamson County) and West (McLennan County), exploring the role that an obsolescent language continues to play in the immigrant community and in the shifting definitions of its members' ethnic identity. Drawing on the community members' perspective, I examine the causes of discontinued transmission of Czech, the notion of a speaker of Texas Czech/Moravian and of the Texas Czech speech community, the contexts of Texas Czech use and its role in the speaker's identity, the self-defined ethnolinguistic identities vis-a-vis the speakers' idiolects, and attitudes toward the attempts at language revival. Two groups of focal informants (born before and after 1945) include second-to-fourth generation descendants of the first Texas settlers from the Lachian and Wallachian regions of Moravia (presently part of the Czech Republic). The database consists of fieldnotes from participant observation, 39 interviews, and attitudinal questionnaires. Structured tasks were used to elicit comparable linguistic data on lexicon, dialectal and reduced features of Texas Czech. Among my findings are that the stigmatized image of Texas Czech tends to implicitly justify the discontinued language transmission, because speaking a "broken" language is undesirable. Members of the speech community, the narrowest section of the Texas Czech community, include 'visible' activists, often perceived as Czech speakers regardless of their language ability. Any use of Texas Czech, encouraged only by specific functional and social contexts, manifests ethnic group membership, yet one does not have to speak the language to feel Czech or Moravian. The informants' self-definitions reflect the process of intergenerational ethic redefinition. Among creative and often commercialized manifestations of Czechness, Texas Czech folk music helps maintain the 'idea' of the heritage language. Most informants value their cultural heritage and support in principle any efforts to preserve the language, but they realize its limited utility. Yet the interest in learning Czech among the youth exists and should be exploited. Overall, a comparison of Granger and West shows that the effective display and marketing of the "Czech heritage" does not necessarily enhance chances for language retention.

Although it is often anticipated that demographic diversity in decision-making teams will enhance decision quality because individuals will offer unique perspectives, there is little empirical support for this hypothesis. Diverse work teams usually suffer from poor communication and are prone to conflict because individuals are so different from each other. My dissertation research tries to better understand how demographic diversity affects individuals in teams by examining the team decision-making process in depth. I study the intervening process variables of conflict and miscommunication, as well as the outcome variables of team identity and decision quality. I also examine how communication media affect individuals in these same teams. I conducted a field experiment. Subjects were assigned to conditions based on their actual roles in an organization. Using a balanced 2 x 2 design, I constructed demographically diverse and homogenous work teams along the dimensions of organizational function, racial-ethnic minority status, and sex. Teams communicated face-to-face or using computer-mediated communication technology. Results indicate that demographic diversity has both a positive and a negative effect on the ability of individuals to identify with their team and to negotiate higher quality decisions. Results also show that when teams' communication was computer mediated, individuals in these teams had weaker team identity and lower decision quality. An intervening process theory involving miscommunication and conflict is supported.

This research addresses where and why interethnic violence occurred during four major urban riots of the 20th Century: The Chicago Riot of 1919, The Detroit Riot of 1943, the Miami Riot of 1980, and the Los Angeles Riot of 1992. Employing a multi-method approach, including historical accounts, statistical modeling of census data, and geographic information systems (GIS) analysis, I investigate whether an explanatory model combining elements of ethnic succession and competition perspectives on riot violence is generalizable to both recent riot events in Miami and Los Angeles and earlier riots in Chicago and Detroit. Such explanation emphasizes the effects of internal and international migration on the racial/ethnic composition of neighborhoods, competition for jobs and housing, and the intensity of riot violence at the census tract level. I find support for a combined ethnic succession and ethnic competition interpretation of riot violence in all four events. I conclude by highlighting the similar effects of the Great Migration on rioting in Chicago and Detroit and recent waves of immigration on rioting in Miami and Los Angeles. I argue that to make sense of recent rioting in Miami and Los Angeles we must be willing to engage in historical comparisons and examine the local dynamics of inter-ethnic violence in cases past and present. We must look beyond the black/white race relations paradigm towards a general model of collective violence that is independent of the specific actors involved, a model that takes the changing racial/ethnic composition of American cities into account.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the classroom environment in choral music programs with both low Hispanic enrollment and proportionate Hispanic enrollment in order to identify the aspects of the classroom environment that may encourage Hispanic participation. In addition, this study investigated whether there was a difference in how Hispanic students, White students, and students who are neither Hispanic nor White assess the classroom environment in choral music programs. Finally, this research compared the classroom environment in the choral music classroom with a normative sample of representative high school classes. Four hundred and five high school students enrolled in ten choral music programs completed the Classroom Environment Scale. The students' responses were then analyzed using a multivariate analysis of variance. The results of this analysis indicate there is a difference between the classroom environments in programs with proportionate Hispanic enrollment and programs with low Hispanic enrollment. Students in programs with proportionate Hispanic enrollment report a lower level of affiliation, less competition between students, and a lower level of teacher control. There is also a difference in the assessment of the classroom environment among Hispanic students, White students and students who are neither Hispanic nor White. Hispanic students feel less affiliation with the choir regardless of program enrollment. In addition, there was an interaction effect with regards to innovation. Hispanic students in programs with low Hispanic enrollment assess the teaching in the choral music classroom as more innovative than Hispanic students enrolled in programs with proportionate Hispanic enrollment and students who are neither Hispanic nor White and who are enrolled in either type of program.* ftn*Originally published in DAI Vol. 58, No. 4. Reprinted here with corrected author name.

This is a fragment of the history of Iss (Achoma-wi) and Aw'te (Atsuge-wi), native tribes of northeastern California. Politically, both tribes are placed under the rubric: Pit River Tribe. It is based on a narrative about Niee Denice, an Aw'te person born on Lost Creek in the Hat Creek area. The English rendition was told by Lela Grant Rhoades to linguist Bruce Nevins at Redding, California, 1972, at her home and in my presence. Niee Denice was later named Sampson Ulysses Grant by Basque ranchers who took him in during his flight from confinement at the Round Valley Reservation near Covelo. Grant's narrative begins when he was a child, rounded up as a part of a continual effort by the military and the vigilante "Guards/Rangers" throughout California to erase the native people from the earth. His mother and baby brother were shot while he and his father watched. They were murdered by the military because they were holding up the forced-march through the November snows of the Sierra Nevada/Cascade mountain ranges. The destination of the natives was unclear. Some records indicated that it was Fort Tejon, in southern California. Others that it was Round Valley Reservation, near Covelo. According to the narrative, the natives were marched to Fort Reading (Redding) in the Sacramento Valley, then south to Sacramento where they were put aboard ship. Beyond sight of land, the Captain caused the ship to spin around and around, hoping to make the natives lose direction to land. Then the sailors began throwing natives overboard. A near mutiny on this ship caused the Captain to put into Mendocino Station. Then the people were marched to Round Valley Reservation. He escaped and returned home. Grant gave the original narrative to his daughter, Lela, in Aw'te, while their family lived in Goose Valley. She, in turn, translated it into English for her children and the rest of us illiterate in Aw'te. I bought a copy of the recording from the Linguistics Library at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991 and am working with Reitha B. Amen, Lela's daughter, to bring this history alive.

This study investigates the social construction of race, marine space, and resource conflict in one U.S. Native American community: the Makah Reservation, Neah Bay, Washington. A combination of archival records, news media coverage, and semistructured interviews is employed in order to expose the historic roots of the Makah Tribe's recent movement to reclaim control over traditional marine spaces. In particular, this research focuses on the gray whale controversy period between 1995-2000, when, to the consternation of conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Makahs organized to resume a limited, cultural based harvest of the California gray whale in Pacific waters. This paper suggests that extant conflicts which developed between the Makah people, on one hand, and anti-whaling NGOs on another, were as much a struggle over marine space as they were a struggle over gray whale resources. Three central conclusions are drawn from the study. First, it is shown that Pacific marine "space" serves as a distinct, historical territory upon which many of the Makahs' political, cultural, and economic processes take form. Second, this research argues that NGO efforts to arrest the Makahs' contemporary whale harvest in offshore Pacific waters have been interpreted by tribal members as a neocolonialist invasion into what was once customarily managed marine space. Third, these results show how, despite the dominance of anti-whaling NGOs, Makahs have effectively mobilized global media technologies in order to empower themselves politically, transcend the territorial boundaries of the reservation, and reclaim control over the marine environment.

This work is the study of the dual movement of a people. Firstly, the Serbs physically migrated, starting in the 1880s and concluding in the 1910s, from the Balkans to the Chicago region. Secondly, by the late 1930s, these immigrants had moved racially from being an indeterminate racial group to being part of the white race. When Serbs came to the Chicago region, Protestant native-born Americans did not consider them to be white. From the Serbs' arrival around the turn of the century to the early 1930s, Chicago area Progressives and residents constructed a racialized view of these Serbs. The Serbs, according to these mostly Anglo Americans, were uncivilized. Middle-class immigrant Serbs, declaring a need for racial improvement, constructed themselves as civilized and white. These Serbs pointed back to centuries of Serbian civilization and culture as proof of their fitness to participate in Anglo-American society. Serbian history showed they were a truly democratic and civilized people, not the tribal savages that Anglo-Americans saw. Immigrant Serbs, through benefit and fraternal organizations, also promoted the Yugoslav ideal as the path toward civilization. Creating a Yugoslav kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes would show Americans that all Serbs everywhere were democratic and civilized. With the rise of xenophobia and racism during the 1920s, the United States experienced a crisis in race and citizenship. Serbs stood at the crossroads of this crisis. While middle-class Serbs continued promoting themselves as white and civilized, Anglo Americans realized that they too could benefit from these Serbian middle class' efforts. The Serbs, Anglo-Americans argued, should become citizens and pledge their allegiance to the United States. Through this process of citizenship, the Serbs would learn to be good Americans, a key to becoming white. As part of the white race, the Serbs would no longer present a challenge to Anglo-American racial hegemony.

This dissertation examines the impact of network effects in two settings--the computer software markets and self-employment decisions by individuals. Although there have been strong developments on the theory of network effects, relatively little empirical work has been done to examine their importance. The first part of this dissertation focuses on network effects in the market for computer software. It has been hypothesized that the presence of network effects in this market might often lead to lock-in of an inferior technology. An indirect test of this hypothesis is devised by taking advantage of a natural experiment afforded by the introduction of the programming language, Java. Java made it possible for programmers to write a single program that would run on any operating system. It therefore had the potential to eliminate the indirect network externalities in the operating systems market. Hedonic price regressions with fixed time and firm effects are estimated to test for the effect of Java on the extent of competition in the software market. Results using data compiled from magazine reviews of graphics applications programs indicate that Java was successful in creating more competition in the market for software applications. The second part of this dissertation examines whether social networks might explain the persistent racial gap in Self-Employment (SE) rates in the United States. Self-employment rates in the United States fell dramatically for most of the twentieth century before starting to increase in the 1970's. The racial gap in self-employment rates however, remained constant throughout this period. Many theories have been proposed in the literature but none of them successfully explains the persistence of the gap. A multinomial logit specification is used to model individual decisions to become self-employed. The average SE rate in the neighborhood is used as a measure of the network effect. Results indicate that social networks played an important role in promoting self-employment among blacks since 1950. Given the initial conditions of lower SE rates among blacks, the role of social networks in promoting SE might be able to explain the persistence of the racial gap in SE rates.